“Oh, yes; we can do our best to make up for your blunder, by hunting for both the thief and the notes; but I have told you what is most likely to be the result.”
I had no expectation of making anything by a search in Morley’s house, but I thought it advisable that the form should be gone through, if only that I might study the man’s face the while. I could have gone and done it there and then, but deemed it best to wait till morning.
There was a possibility, as Mr Lockyer suggested, of Morley repenting of his act and returning the plunder in the night time, and, besides, by delaying till morning, we might take him unexpectedly. Of course I afterwards regretted the delay; we always do when we find ourselves disappointed in results.
Morley appeared as usual at the yard before six o’clock, and made no allusion to the interview of the night before beyond asking his master, when he appeared about eight o’clock, “if he had got any word of the missing money.”
He got a very curt and ungracious answer, and spoke no more. At the breakfast hour, when Morley locked up the yard and went home, I was waiting near the spot with two assistants skilled in searching. We just allowed John to enter his house and get comfortably seated at his porridge, when we knocked and were admitted. He did not seem greatly disturbed when I gave my name and showed the search warrant.
“You didna need a warrant to search my house,” he said boldly. “I tellt the maister that he was welcome to search it whenever he liked.”
He sat down and finished his porridge with evident zest and appetite, while we turned over every article in the little den of a house. The place had not been disturbed so much for many a day. Morley’s wife seemed much more distressed at the charge than he, and assisted us with the greatest eagerness and anxious concern. We found no trace of the notes, and Morley’s manner convinced me that they were not in the house. He was too cool and careless. Had they been hidden there—however securely or effectively—he could not have concealed some perturbation when we came near the spot or grew “hot” in our little game of “hide and seek.” Just once did I notice anything like a change in his expression of face. When we had turned over everything in the house, I chanced to say to Mrs Morley—
“These are all the things you have, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” she earnestly answered. “Since John rackit himsel’ we’ve had to make shift with less and less.”
While she thus spoke, I saw her eye run round the room as if in search of something; then she began poking about with the aid of one of our lanterns, and finally she turned to her husband and said in a kind of whisper—